“I understand the feelings of those disappointed with me, but the reality scenario, which is more challenging than the House of Cards, forced me to do it my way. And if this is the end to my political career but I get to serve the State of Israel well, then I have accomplished something!” These were the final words of a personal message that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz sent April 1 to the many members of his WhatsApp group who have been walking around for days with a sense of shock and rage, mourning his decision to join Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a power-sharing government.

Gantz wrote that while he understood his voters’ disappointment and anger, the option of forming a minority government was not viable and his former partner in the Blue and White leadership, Yair Lapid, was wrong in refusing to realize this. The left-wing political camp rebuffed his explanations with contempt, having crowned him as its savior, a clone of assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin who would restore the center left to power and to its glory days and finally bring down Netanyahu.

The Israeli left is at a low historic ebb and has been virtually wiped out. Not only has Gantz hooked up with Netanyahu, but Labor party Chair Amir Peretz is also on his way. Both violated explicit pledges to their voters not to join Netanyahu, but in Peretz’s case, the implication is even more significant. Gantz never portrayed himself as a left-wing ideologue but rather as a political centrist who even tried to appeal to moderate right-wing voters when he started out in politics in late 2018. Peretz, on the other hand, was the oracle of the camp, a veteran politician whose agenda most clearly reflected a social-democratic worldview. A year ago, Peretz promised to restore Labor to power. Instead, he brought the party to its worst-ever, most embarrassing performance in the September 2019 and the March 2020 elections. The party, which established the State of Israel and governed it for its first three decades, is now left with a mere three representatives in the Knesset, a near fatal blow to the Israeli left.

However, the anger at Gantz and to a great extent at Peretz is divorced from Israel’s political reality. Neither one of them could have restored the center left to power for the simple reason that this camp lacks sufficient followers in the Israel of 2020. That is why, when he entered political life some 18 months ago, Gantz did not present himself as the leader of the center-left camp. The calling card of the former military leader was as a political centrist with an inclination toward the moderate right. Gantz sets his sights on the “light right,” knowing that his way to the premiership would have to go through that constituency. He tried to attract the support of Likud party followers fed up with Netanyahu, and even of settlers, but found out over and over throughout three election cycles that these voters were not rallying to his side.